Several employees at Kishore Biyani-led Future Retail (FRL) stores, including Big Bazaar, have started receiving offer letters from Reliance Retail, asking them to join the subsidiary of the oil-to-telecom conglomerate.
The move, which comes during a long legal fight with Amazon, is being seen as a "takeover" attempt by Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries, which is seeking a sizable share of the retail and e-commerce markets.
Senior officials connected to the plan informed that the development might include the replacement of Big Bazaar signs and branding in these outlets with those of Reliance. This means that Reliance will operate the stores under its own name, rather than the Big Bazaar brand.
Inability to compensate landlords, Reliance acquired FRL outlets and then rented them to the Biyani-led firm for operations under its brands. Additionally, Reliance Jiomart provided the majority of merchandise for these outlets, since a cash-strapped FRL was unable to pay dues to current suppliers.
Emails received on Friday evening to a Reliance Retail and FRL spokesman remained unanswered at the time of publication.
FRL got letters from Reliance Projects and Property Management Services requesting that it vacate several locations due to non-payment. While some of these locations remained closed, signs posted on entryways stated "Stock Taking in Progress—store will stay closed."
Amazon purchased 49% of FCPL, an unlisted Future Group business, for Rs 1,500 crore in 2019. Due to FCPL's approximately 10% stake in FRL, the e-tailer claimed it granted it rights over the latter. Following the announcement of the Future-Reliance acquisition, Amazon sued FRL in a Singapore arbitration court for claimed contract violations.